Wichita eagle., 1887-06-09
A POLICE COMMISSION.
An Undeserved Humiliation Forced
Upon Our City.


Upon Our City.
The executive council yesterday afternoon
Amounted police commissioners for Wichita.
The following gentlemen are members of
the commission: j. G. Rutan, president;
o. d. Kirk, secl etary, and W. B. JONES'
Capital.
The action of Governor Martin and his
council in taking the government of
Wichita out of the hands of the people and
placing it in the hands of a combination,
dictated by very small minority, was not
an unex pected action. The animus OF this
curse and humiliation as also the instru-
mentality of its begetting is no more hid
den than the pretence upon which the
action was based. els Wichita bigger
than he state of Kansas" was the demand
of heet in Bourbon Missouri, at whose
frown Kansas Republican politicians have
abjectly quailed for years. wichita is
not bigger than the state of Kansas, and we
will S how you," was the echoing answer
of the officials in whom lay the power
for executing the most infamous enact
ment of modern legislation, and which is
withou ut parallel except in the suspension
of the writ of habeas corpus and the en-
forcin Of martial law as military neces-
sity in times of instruction and rebellion.
This outrageous law found an excuse in
its enactment from an abnormal state of al
fairs at Wyandotte, which had become the
rendezvous of lawless characters and ele-
ments sloughed off by Kansas City, and
further countenance from dissatisfied
mino rity in Leavenworth City, which min
ority could down its officers and the major
ity in no other way, and was passed by the
most one-sided and weakest legislature
ever assembled in the state, to say nothing
worse of it, passed at the solicitation and
instigation of people in towns where even
the open saloons had never been closed up
to the hour that the bill was signed.
Wichita, when the prohibition enactment
became a law, closed up her saloons as
promptly as any city in Kansas. In the
meantime Wichita kept on growing and
prospering. Fifteen thousand to
twenty thousand people within
the last year, attracted by her spirit
of liberia lily and--munifcence, by the moral
ity of her people, by her religious charac-
ter and educational. as well as by
her good government, came to join their
lives, fortunes and homes to ours. These
were more in number than any city in
Kansas or in the entire west could boast
for any single year And that is where the
trouble came in. The Kansas City Times,
the moral barometer and inspiration of the
average Kansas demagogue, couldn't stand
such showing as Wichita was making,
neither could Kansas City, nor could the
papers of the Kansas towns which Kansas
City is overshadowing and draining. To
the Kansas City Times intimatien that all
of the twenty thousand people which had
been ad ded to Wichita must be rum soaked
suckers and thstWichita kept open saloons,
the response of ''yea, yea, was raised all
along the line The Kansas City Times
then said that Wichita must be set back
and that Bradford the attorney
general must do it. The answer from
Bradford through its own reporter and
columns was to the effect that he was not
only ready but would obey Immediately
The Times said that Murdoch and the peo-
pie of Wichita were openly defying the
powers of the state. The automatic chief
authorities at Topeka answered affirma
lively To cut out an excuse for the car
rying out the program was but the work OF
short time The instruments were put to
work; they are in our own midst; they
never did anything but suck fairness from
the town, and grow rich through those
whose enterprise and brains and labor had
wrought such wonders; and the necessary
letters and petitions were on the road tC
Topeka Not one man or woman in ten OF
these were ever anything but leeches-nol
one in ten who ever added to the solidity
or glory of Wichita, unless narrowness and
devotion to self can be counted the one or
the other. The Times then sent on its too
who announced upon his arrival that Brad
ford would be in Wichita next day. Mr.
Bradford came accordingly. The Times
man then took charge of him. He brought
him to the EAGLE Office first. AS best we
could we answered the questions of the
Missouri inquisitor, trying in the mean
time to convince the law-officer who &C
companied him that our town had been
lied about; that while we claimed to be nc
better than the other cities of our class ir
the state, that we were no worse: that Of
course we had joints and places where
liquor could be procured, but no more
numerously, or no more openly than in
Atchison or in Topeka, or in any other
place of more than twenty-five thousand
people. in Kansas; that we were a happy
prosperous people and very proud of oul
progress and of our liberality, proud of our
beautiful homes, of our grand school
houses, of our numerous fine churches
splendid streets and good government, and
that in behalf Of the city we only asked
that he should make proper allowances
for such things which ever accompany &
phenomenal growth, and when he had goi
all through to make an exact report Of the
truth so that the world might know how il
was From cur office the Times man took